Gilded Serpent, page 18
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I am so sorry for being the reason he’s gone.”
And for withholding the truth about Hegeria’s healers from you.
Quintus scrubbed at his eyes. “It’s not your fault. And I just wanted you to know that I intend to be worthy of your trust, Teriana. I won’t desert you.”
“Neither will I.” Leaning sideways, she rested her head against his, not sure if what she was about to do was a kindness or cruelty. “When we’re all free, you and Miki find the Quincense, all right? I know of people who might be able to help him.”
He turned to look at her. “Truly?”
“On my honor,” she said. “If it’s possible, I’ll see it done.” Then she looked up at the cliff rising above them. “In the meantime, do you want to jump?”
He smiled, and for the first time, it touched his eyes. “Race you to the top?”
“Not sure that’s fair, you being injured and all.”
A laugh tore from his lips. “That’s the only thing that’s going to make it fair. For pride or coin?”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “Pride, obviously. You’ve already lost all your coin to me at cards.”
Swimming toward the falls, Teriana examined the face of the cliff, which was rugged and full of handholds, but also slick with moisture. “Go.”
Quintus leapt up, catching hold of protruding rock and using his superior strength to haul his way higher. He knew what he was doing, but still, Teriana watched him for a few minutes until she deemed he had a fair head start.
Then she started climbing.
33
MARCUS
“We’ve come across a few old campsites and a handful of trails that look to have seen recent use,” Gibzen said. “But no sign of either Arinoquians or the rumored inlanders.”
“Someone built that city,” Marcus muttered, slowly following the men he’d allocated a few hours of leisure down to the pool beneath the waterfall. Even with Quintus with her, he didn’t like Teriana being out of sight. “And I’m not surprised you’ve seen no Arinoquians. They stick to the coast.”
Gibzen nodded, scanning the surrounding jungle. “We can scout farther inland and see what we discover.”
“No.” Marcus heard splashing and laughter, and part of him wished he could strip down and join them. But his presence always put a damper on the mood of the men, kept them from fully enjoying themselves. “Already we’re on their lands. If we push farther west, they’ll see it as an invasion and potentially retaliate. And I’m in no mood to pick a fight with an enemy we know nothing about.”
Gibzen shrugged. “Maybe they’re all dead. It’s been close to two decades since the clans invaded and drove them inland, and they’ve had no contact with anyone outside the Uncharted Lands since. Hard to keep a civilization alive out here.”
“Do you think they’re all dead?” Marcus’s eyes went to Teriana, who had been conversing with Quintus, though now they were swimming toward the falls.
The primus huffed out a breath, then looked up at the canopy. “No,” he finally admitted. “I feel watched.”
As did Marcus. But given the inlanders had shown no signs of aggression to his men, he had no intention of provoking them. “We have our hands full with the situation in Aracam. Secure the xenthier stem, but otherwise, don’t go farther than the city. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Loud shouts caught Marcus’s attention, and his eyes snapped to where Teriana and Quintus had been moments ago. They were gone.
“Where—” He caught sight of motion farther up the cliff. “What is she doing?”
“Climbing,” Gibzen answered, as though that much wasn’t obvious.
Quintus was known for his skill at climbing, and the heavy muscles in his arms and shoulders bunched as he hauled himself higher at reckless speed.
Teriana was better.
She scampered upward, and though logically Marcus knew to do so took strength, she made it look effortless in her grace. Passing Quintus, she rose higher up the towering cliff, mist from the waterfall gusting over her and making her seem ephemeral. She took no time to test her handholds, seemingly fearless of falling.
Then she was at the top, rolling over only to stand and hold her hands skyward in victory.
“What’s up there?” Marcus asked. “Do we have anyone on lookout?”
Gibzen shrugged. “More of the same. Forest as far as the eye can see. I’ve got a man up there watching our rear.”
“Come up here!” Teriana’s faint voice reached him. “The view is incredible!”
Gibzen chortled, and Marcus fought the urge to shove him into the pool, instead crossing his arms and glaring upward. Trying to contain his fear as she announced her intention to jump.
She swayed over the edge, and he took an involuntary step forward, but she only laughed, her and Quintus backtracking. Then they raced forward and leapt.
His heart stopped as she fell through the air, braids flying above her head and her face full of delight. She pointed her toes, lifting her arms skyward, and then she hit the water, disappearing beneath its churning depths, with Quintus landing a second later.
Marcus’s feet took him to the edge of the pool, and he stared at the place she’d gone under. Quintus rose to the surface, pumping his fist in the air to the delight of the other men. But there was no sign of Teriana.
What if she’d hit a rock? Been caught in the waterfall’s undertow? What if she were being dragged unconscious downstream where the rapids grew wild?
“Where is she?” he demanded, searching the water for the glint of the gold in her braids. The men grew silent, their eyes searching, and Quintus dived under the water.
Then a snort of amusement caught his attention. Looking down, he saw Teriana resting her elbows on the rocks below him. “Help me out?”
She reached up, and he dutifully took her hand, readying to haul her out of the water and then give her a lecture on risks. But the second their fingers latched, Teriana braced her feet against the side and pulled. Yelping, Marcus toppled forward, and the water closed over him.
Spluttering to the surface, he was greeted with laughter and Teriana’s grinning face. “There’s going to be retribution for this,” he said to her, struggling to stay afloat with the weight of his armor and gear pulling him down.
“First you have to catch me,” she sang, then somersaulted and disappeared into the depths.
Everything he was demanded that he get out of the water. That he not compromise his image of authority for any reason. That he never allow his men to see him as anything other than their commander.
But he was tired of it. Tired of holding himself above them, because above always meant apart.
“Gibzen,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Establish a rotating watch, but otherwise, the men are at liberty to do what they wish.”
A liberty that, for once, he intended to take advantage of himself.
34
LYDIA
The snow-dusted streets were loud with angry voices as the temple soldiers escorted Lydia through Mudaire, civilians shouting and throwing trash in their direction from windows and doors. Broken furniture and belongings littered the ground, looters moving through empty homes to steal anything of value, plumes of smoke rising from at least six locations suggesting they were burning the rest.
But worse were the bodies. Some were nothing more than charred remains—blighters that had been decapitated and then burned—but many more lay rotting among the debris, legs sticking from alleyways and splashes of blood marring the pristine white of the snow.
“They’re starting to fight back,” one of the soldiers said, obviously seeing her horror. “To defend the blighters when we come for them.”
Lydia had known this would happen. Had known that hunting them down and murdering them in front of their families was the worst possible strategy. Yet despite days of searching, she still hadn’t come up with a viable alternative. Her research in the temple’s library had yielded nothing of use, and although Lena and Gwen had had some success integrating themselves with the civilians, they’d yet to find someone sick with blight who was willing to risk meeting her. And seeing what she was seeing on the streets, Lydia couldn’t blame them.
A barefoot woman chose that moment to sprint past them, tears flooding down her cheeks. In hot pursuit were a group of soldiers, naked blades gripped in their hands, but she was fast enough that there was a chance she might get away. Except as Lydia watched, another group of soldiers with a white-robed healer in their midst stepped out from a side street, cutting her off.
The woman slipped and fell, then scrambled to her feet, screaming, “Help! Help me!”
She was a blighter. A walking corpse. But that wasn’t what the civilians teeming from buildings and side streets saw. In their eyes, she was an unarmed woman about to be slaughtered by her own countrymen for no other reason than that a healer had pointed a finger in her direction.
A healer who just happened to be Cyntha.
The older woman had a sword strapped to her waist, and as the soldiers she was with moved to fend off the encroaching civilians, she drew the blade, striding toward the blighter. The woman fell to her knees at Cyntha’s approach, holding up her arms in defense, begging and pleading for mercy.
But Cyntha only lifted her blade, the wind blowing her hair in silvery swirls around her face, half-moon tattoo stark black against the pale skin of her forehead as she shouted, “In the name of the Six!”
Lydia tried to lunge in their direction, but one of her escort caught her arm, hauling her back.
It was too late, anyway. Cyntha’s blade flashed, slicing through the blighter’s arm and then her neck, blood spraying as the body slowly fell backward. Taking the torch from one of her soldiers, Cyntha held it to the woman’s ragged clothing until it ignited, the awful smell of burned flesh filling the air.
More Royal Army soldiers raced onto the scene, their blades clashing against the cudgels and planks of wood the civilians carried, more blood spraying. More bodies falling. And Cyntha was in the thick of it, cutting people down with vigor that belied her age. Using the strength given to her by her mark to do the exact opposite of what it was intended to. Marked or not, how anyone could see her as a healer, Lydia didn’t know.
“We need to be gone.” One of the soldiers dragged on Lydia’s arm. “If you’re noticed, they’ll come for you.”
She allowed him to pull her up the street, the group breaking into a run until they reached the barricades at the palace walls. The soldiers there allowed her to pass but asked her escort to remain. “They aren’t infected,” she protested. “Let them through.”
“King’s orders,” the soldier in charge said, the expression on his face telling her that he wouldn’t be swayed.
Gritting her teeth, Lydia entered alone, making her way through the Royal Army camp. She scanned the soldiers within to see if any had been turned, but every man she saw was very much alive.
A servant met her at the entrance and escorted her directly to the council chambers. Inside, she found the King sitting on his throne, his eyes closed. His face was drawn and shadowed with exhaustion, his blond braid unkempt and his clothing wrinkled and marked with sweat stains at the armpits.
“You made promises you are clearly incapable of keeping, Marked One,” he said without opening his eyes.
“I made no promises,” she answered, slowly approaching the dais and wishing they were not alone. “I only offered hope.”
He sighed. “Hope, when proven false, is a bitter thing.”
Silence that she didn’t dare break stretched between them. She’d spent all of her arguments, voiced her pleas that the infected be brought to her rather than killed, but it had done no good.
“There is a ship soon to arrive,” he finally said. “It holds all the young healers Quindor had ordered be trained in Serlania instead of adding mouths to feed in Mudaire during the war.”
Her chest tightened, apprehension prickling across her skin.
“Unless you are able to provide me an alternative,” he continued, “once they arrive, we will begin the process of purging the city and forcing those left onto ships. And then Mudaire will be razed, the gates closed, and what remains abandoned as we retreat to the south out of range of the blight.”
Nearly a quarter of Mudamora would be deadland belonging to the Corrupter, the North entirely cut off from the South except by way of ship. “What if the blight begins to spread again?”
“Then we’ll know for certain that the Six have turned their backs on Mudamora.”
They hadn’t. She knew in their heart that they hadn’t, it was only that the Corrupter had somehow grown so very strong.
“You have until the ship arrives, Lydia,” he said. Then he opened his eyes, and the unflinching determination in them made her stomach twist. “I pray it will be enough time for you to prove that Hegeria still walks with us.”
35
TERIANA
“You should be doing this,” Marcus said, shifting where he sat next to her. His armor was in a pile in front of him, and he’d spent the past hour rubbing oil into the leather straps and sharpening blades while the rest of them gambled.
“I’m busy.” She held up her cards. “But while you’re at it, this could use a sharpen.” Pulling her knife from her belt, she tossed it on the ground in front of him.
The men laughed, and after casting his eyes up at the tarp above them, Marcus picked up her knife and began sharpening it. He was relaxed, but rather than tempering her own anxieties, his calmness made her nervous.
Glancing at the faces of the other players, she tossed a gold coin into the pile between them, watching as the others met her bet. Scouts made the best gambling companions, because they always seemed to have more coin to wager. Less opportunity to spend it, she supposed, though Gibzen had told her it was because they were risk takers.
“I’m out.” Quintus stretched his arms upward. “And to bed.”
“Same,” two of the others said, one giving Marcus a sly smile. “I don’t suppose we get to spend tomorrow swimming, do we, sir?”
“You suppose right.”
There were mock groans, but no one argued.
“Ready to call it quits?” Teriana’s remaining opponent asked, his eyes gleaming in the firelight.
“And surrender such a pot?” She laughed. “Hardly.”
Fishing around in her pocket, she found another gold coin, though it was her last. This game was getting a bit rich for her blood.
Her opponent bit at his bottom lip as he looked again at his cards. Then his eyes flicked to Marcus, who was examining the edge of her neglected knife blade. Teriana’s senses perked. “Stakes getting too high? Might be time for you to fold, my friend.”
Her opponent snorted, then pulled a coin that glinted gold from his belt pouch, flicking it into the pile hard enough that it all went sliding every which way. But Teriana was a master at sleight of hand, and she tracked which way the coin slid, the sight of the glittering dragon on its face giving her pause. Marcus had forbidden anyone to bring Cel currency across the Endless Seas.
At the sight of the coin, memory danced across her vision. Memory of Ashok holding a handful of golden coins stamped with that very dragon.
Her pulse raced, a thousand questions burning in her mind, but getting the right answers required the right approach.
And the absence of a certain legatus.
Reaching across him for a bottle that was sitting on a log, she turned her face to Marcus, their eyes meeting. Go, she mouthed.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed, but rather than arguing, he rose to his feet. “Don’t drink it all. Dawn comes early.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She refilled her cup, waiting for him to be out of earshot before turning back to her opponent. Reaching down, she plucked up the dragon, turning the gold coin over in her hands. “Strange to see Cel clink on this side of the seas. Thought it was forbidden.”
He made a face. “Before you go ratting me out, I didn’t bring it. Won it in a card game in a brothel in Aracam. Off one of the girls who works there.”
“Why would I rat you out? Makes no difference to me.”
He shrugged. “You’re getting a bit of a reputation for stirring up trouble.”
It was a struggle not to flinch. “The only thing I’ve a reputation for is fleecing you lot at cards. And on that subject, let’s see what you got.”
He flattened his cards against the dirt, revealing a good hand. A very good hand.
But some of her reputation, she’d earned.
Laying her cards down, she smirked. “Better luck next time.”
Her opponent swore, his face twisting in frustration as she scooped the pile of coins toward her and shoved them into her pockets, though the dragon she palmed, not wanting to let it out of her sight.
Marcus returned to camp, his eyes questioning as they met hers. But she only shook her head, because the coin was proof of nothing other than that someone had violated Marcus’s orders.
“Lights out, boys,” Marcus said softly to those who remained awake, unrolling his bedding and climbing into it. She briefly entertained the idea of setting out her own bedroll next to him, but then thought better of it and set it out between Quintus and the fire, climbing beneath the blanket.
All night, she tossed and turned, sleep evading her, and as the faint glow of dawn emerged in the east, Teriana pulled the coin from her pocket, running her thumb over the shiny gold surface and its familiar snarling dragon before turning it over.
And scowling at the sight of Lucius Cassius’s face.
The mint had done a fair job capturing his likeness. His profile revealed the weak chin he’d passed on to Titus; the resemblance between the two was marked. Especially given these freshly minted coins bore none of the wear of those that had been long in circulation.
